The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) has only managed to file criminal charges based on five of the approximately 25 forensic audits referred to it since 2015, which is being blamed on insufficient manpower.
This newspaper was informed that SOCU has had to stretch its resources to deal with the unit’s regular workload of money laundering and other types of criminal investigations.
Based on Sunday Stabroek’s records, charges have been filed after audits related to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (New GMC), the Sparendaam Housing Project (Pradoville 2), the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) and the Commonwealth Law Reports. The New GMC and GRDB matters ended in dismissals in October, 2017 and October, 2018, respectively.
The other audits pertain to Guyana Power and Light Inc, the Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary-Agriculture Develop-ment Authority, the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest), the Hydrometeorological Office, the National Communications Network (NCN), the Marriott Hotel, the Guyana Energy Agency/GuyOil, the Guyana Gold Board, the National Frequency Management Unit, the One Laptop Per Family project, the E-Governance Project, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, the Home Affairs Ministry’s water cannon, the National Insurance Scheme, the Scrap Metal Unit, the Guyana Lotteries Company, the Environmental Protection Agency and Cricket World Cup 2008.
This newspaper was informed that in addition to the unit’s head, Assistant Commissioner Sydney James, there are two forensic analysts, one intelligence officer, nine investigators and a lawyer. James is a former army intelligence officer.
While sources close to the unit are adamant that the staff complement is too small for the unit’s workload, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan has expressed disagreement, saying that he is comfortable with the current number.
“Yes, I am pretty okay with it,” he said, when asked by Sunday Stabroek on Friday about the whether the unit has a large enough staff.
Reminded that there is a large volume of work, which clearly requires more investigators, the minister explained that such a need will always exist but would be subject to the availability of resources. “There will always be need but it is a matter of resources and that is why we have to prioritise our spending,” he said, before adding that when more resources become available, “certainly we will employ lots more professional forensic auditors and financial analysts at SOCU but you are never gonna get the perfect system, the ideal system, meaning the amount of people in your various units. You need more people but at the present moment we have to be satisfied based on the resources that we have against what we can do. That is why some people feel we should be doing so much more and I agree with them but based on the resources, these are the people you will employ,” the minister stated.
Former advisor Dr. Sam Sittlington, who had spent several years working closely with the unit, had raised concerns about staffing. In January, 2017, he had informed that the four investigators were single-handedly conducting in excess of 300 investigations.
“They are a small team. One of my recommendations was that the team should be enhanced and we are waiting on that to happen. They do not have the capability of dealing with all those cases, so there has to be a priority list made up to deal with the most serious ones first,” he had said then, before expressing the view that at least 15 investigators were needed.
Additional investigators were subsequently employed but the workload was drastically increased with the audits and other investigations the unit had to conduct.
James told this newspaper in February, 2017, that audit reports, which at that point totalled 18, had resulted in over 100 smaller investigations. He had stressed that his investigators were working around the clock to close the cases, which was no easy task given the complexity of the matters. He had gone on to explain that there were about 86 separate investigations arising out of the NICIL audit and 45 out of the GRDB audit. He had explained that the challenge with these matters was that “people might think that if I say NICIL, it is one matter… [but] it has several investigations inside.”
Sunday Stabroek was also informed recently that about two dozen files emanating from the audits are sitting at the office of the Police Legal Advisor, retired judge Claudette Singh, who is awaiting the court’s ruling on the validity of the misconduct in public office charge filed in the NICIL matter. Based on that ruling, Singh would advise whether the unit can move forward with the matters she has in her possession. “That’s why a lot of the cases are not being dealt with,” one source said.
Recently, reports of grave mismanagement at the unit surfaced and questions have been raised as to whether James is in need of support staff to help him with some of the administrative functions.
When asked about this, Ramjattan responded, “The administrative duties have to be done by the leader of the unit. You need an administrator who has the capacity to scrutinise the core work—which is investigations—but also to administer. That is what the Commissioner of Police does. That is what we all do at ministry level here. We have to do our police work but we have to administer our ministries. It comes with leadership and… the core tasks because you just don’t say you will go and be an investigator. That is why we have professional investigators down the line. They are paid for that. He’s (James) paid for administering and also scrutinising investigations,” he noted.
SOCU was set up in 2014 by the then PPP/C government to deal primarily with investigating suspected cases of money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Based on subsequent amendments to its governing legislation, the unit is now mandated to collect, investigate, gather and use forensic and other evidence of cases related to money laundering/terrorist financing and other criminal activities.
The criminal activities outside of terrorism and money laundering which are outlined in the amendments are: participation in an organised criminal group and racketeering; trafficking in human beings and migrant smuggling; sexual exploitation, including the sexual exploitation of children; illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances; illicit arms and ammunition trafficking; corruption and bribery; fraud; counterfeiting and piracy of products; environmental crimes; murder; grievous bodily harm; kidnapping, illegal restraint and hostage taking; robbery or theft; smuggling; extortion; forgery; piracy; insider trading and market manipulation; tax evasion; and gold smuggling.
